[Mapper]

My SD who will be 20 next month hasn't said that she wants to live with us, but I can see H trying with all his might to make it happen. She currently lives with her mom and her mom's BF 3 hours away. She goes through these bouts of drama where nothing goes right for her. SO many boy problems, she takes a job and then quits because "everyone she works with is out to get her". We don't know if she's going to school or not because she'll go for a semester and then stop because she has anxiety or something. She can be so moody and when she's here she just sits on the couch and plays on her phone. I'm not sure what her current relationship is with her mother, but it seems to be okay. She smokes a lot of pot, freely in front of both her mom and dad. She drinks and does that freely as well. I mean she came up with a friend for a concert last month and stayed with us and H tells them as he's going to bed "You guys can have at the rest of the whiskey"! And they did. Her parents aren't parents, they are friends. H disses on her mom for just being a friend but he doesn't see he's the same way. He never asks her about school or if she's even attending, about any boys in her life, about her goals. Their conversations seems to consist of movies, video games and sushi. H thinks he can swoop in and save the day when she gets like this and things aren't going right with her mom or friends or school or work so that's when she wants to come up and live here.

He is going down to see her next weekend and I can just see him coming home saying "I told her she should come up and live with us for a while". He doesn't see any need in talking to me about it, because even if I get upset and say I don't want her here he'll say she's his daughter and she can come whenever she wants. We've never had her stay with us for more than 2 weeks and no, she can't just up and come and live with us at 20. She needs to get out away from her parents and live with friends or something. Moving herself 3 hours away to a podunk town to simply do the same thing she's doing down there does nothing for her. Sure, H will say that it will be so different for her here and he'll make things happen, but he won't. He'll come home and drink and smoke pot with her and play video games. She's working at Starbucks down there and is apparently starting school in 2 weeks, although H doesn't seem to know for sure if she's going or not. She's got her friends there.

Do you think she would really WANT to come up here if he posed the question? Do you think she SHOULD? Do you think she just needs to get away from everyone?

[Travelinglady]

It's hard to say. It depends on how much he can convince her of the "wonderful" life he can give her. It's a shame he doesn't take your opinion into account. At 18 she is an adult. Too bad she doesn't get her act together and that your H enables her. (But he so much wants her to like him.)

Should she move in? Goodness, no!

[Mapper]

Originally Posted by Travelinglady

It's hard to say. It depends on how much he can convince her of the "wonderful" life he can give her. It's a shame he doesn't take your opinion into account. At 18 she is an adult. Too bad she doesn't get her act together and that your H enables her. (But he so much wants her to like him.)

Should she move in? Goodness, no!

She ALMOST moved in about 5 years ago when things weren't going good with her mom and her mom's then bf. She came up one weekend and reiterated how much she hated it there and then after I went to bed H talked to her about coming up and living with us. Yup, didn't even consult me because he assumed by me silently nodding all the times he said that she should live with us that I had agreed to it. But the deal was that she had to tell her mom and H wasn't going to say anything. Way to parent together huh?! Sorry but a 14 year old girl can't make the decision to just move out of the custodial parent's house! Oh H had her so excited about living with us. How awesome it would be and took her by to see the school and how much fun we'd all have. Well of course she'd want to move here if things weren't awesome there! Of course, when she told her mom she got pissed and told H they were up and moving to Minnesota so he couldn't see her. They never did move out of state but they moved to the most remote corner. Then of course within a year she loved her mom and hated her dad and they didn't speak for a year.

I'm sorry she is having issues, but she is causing the drama as far as I can tell. She can't keep going back and forth between parents every time something goes bad.

[Shazerac]

My opinion is you have every right to a say in who lives in your home. Especially an adult child who obviously has problems. Worring that your husband will just drink and smoke pot with her is a big red flag then you will have 2 adults living in your home who are acting like children.

[Mapper]

Originally Posted by Shazerac

My opinion is you have every right to a say in who lives in your home. Especially an adult child who obviously has problems. Worring that your husband will just drink and smoke pot with her is a big red flag then you will have 2 adults living in your home who are acting like children.

Yes I SHOULD have a right to say who lives there seeing as how I pay 95% of the bills and pretty much all the mortgage because he can't afford to help most months. Yeah that's another thing. Lets bring in another person who can't help with bills! But if I tell him I don't want to have her here I sound selfish and mean and I'm a horrible person in his eyes. He thinks he has every right to have her live with us for as long as she wants. As I said, he's not a parent to her. Lets her drink and smoke.

Is she all of a sudden going to blossom with all this confidence and have a go-getter attitude because she's away from her mom and living with her "fun" dad? And it doesn't take much for him to get under her skin. If he touches her too much she slaps and yells at him and one time they argued at the top of their lungs for so long that the neighbors called the cops to check on us. I don't need that drama in my house.

I may be devil's advocate here but he needs to put his child before anyone else. This doesn't mean I agree with the enabling part-but bottom line is it's his daughter and he should be able to help her in any way he sees fit. Not all 20 year olds are totally mature-I wasn't l, and that's partly because my mother abandoned me at age 15 for a man who didn't want me because I was "troubled". All that did was mess me up more. Frankly I would tell anyone I marry that my children come with me-drama or not, at whatever age-you've become the other parent. And if they aren't okay with that , they can forget about me.

Also, the way you talk about her-especially as a 14 year old child it sounds like you have an intense dislike for her . Which frankly may have contributed to her issues. I know it did mine.

[Nammu]

Doesn't matter which parent she lives with she's not going to suddenly mature when they are both enabling illegal activity on her part. It sounds like you don't get much input despite paying the bills.

[RubyRae]

. My SD who will be 20 next month hasn't said that she wants to live with us, but I can see H trying with all his might to make it happen

So you're not even sure she would want to live with you yet and just assuming your H will try to make it happen,right?

This gives you time to figure out how you will handle it if it does.You can use this time to prepare a list of rules,what boundaries you need to set,whether you will have her contribute income towards bills,whether she will contribute towards household chores,decide how long she can stay,etc.Doing that ahead of time(just in case) will make you feel more in control of the situation.

If you just absolutely don't want her there at all you really need to speak up before it happens or it will turn into a disaster for everyone involved.

Are you close to her?Do you two get along?

[Shazerac]

Woah, let me wrap my head around this. you pay 95% of the bills, your husband sits around smoking pot and YOU are selfish and mean???? This is going to sound really harsh, but it doesn't sound like you are being selfish and mean...it sounds like you acting like a doormat.

I'm really concerned about you more than your SD. What is selfish and mean about expecting a grown man to contribute and pull his own weight in your home? No not at all! And now he wants to bring his adult daughter who has maturity issues also into your home....I don't see this turning out well at all.

Originally Posted by Shazerac

Woah, let me wrap my head around this. you pay 95% of the bills, your husband sits around smoking pot and YOU are selfish and mean???? This is going to sound really harsh, but it doesn't sound like you are being selfish and mean...it sounds like you acting like a doormat.

I'm really concerned about you more than your SD. What is selfish and mean about expecting a grown man to contribute and pull his own weight in your home? No not at all! And now he wants to bring his adult daughter who has maturity issues also into your home....I don't see this turning out well at all.

I would agree that it's unfair of him to sit around and not do anything...it also depends on other factors with the SD because when I was living with family I was unable to work but I did contribute with income from my SSI...either way she also chooses to stay with this person. You can't change other people and like I said I do understand him putting his daughter first but the rest I more or less agree isn't okay.

[Sunflower123]

Originally Posted by RubyRae

So you're not even sure she would want to live with you yet and just assuming your H will try to make it happen,right?

This gives you time to figure out how you will handle it if it does.You can use this time to prepare a list of rules,what boundaries you need to set,whether you will have her contribute income towards bills,whether she will contribute towards household chores,decide how long she can stay,etc.Doing that ahead of time(just in case) will make you feel more in control of the situation.

If you just absolutely don't want her there at all you really need to speak up before it happens or it will turn into a disaster for everyone involved.

Are you close to her?Do you two get along?

I agree with this. Hopefully she isn't coming but if she is you still have time to come up with a strategy for how to handle it. You'll need to be firm about it. Good luck and best wishes.

[Mapper]

Yup, so here came the "She needs to move up here and live with us" talk last night! Every time SD has an issue with something down there and confides in H, H's first response is "You need to move away from there and come up here". He says to me as we are going to dinner last night "I really think SD needs to get away from her mom and live up here. She can work at a Starbucks here just as well as down there and go to the community college here if she wants. She needs to get away from all the boys there and I think her mom is pulling her in all directions and that is stressing SD out". Well maybe her mom is saying she needs to go to school and figure out what she wants rather than you who is telling her she needs to go to Europe to "find herself" or just take some time off and chill and travel. And you don't think she'd have boy issues up here?? He is so concerned with her pot smoking and says she is so involved in the pot culture and it's too much for her. So coming up here to be around you who smokes pot and drinks too much is definitely going to help her?? Give her direction?? Oh and you also plan on showing her your values of not going to work for days at a time when someone at work pisses you off? What exactly is he hoping she'll gain by moving up here and doing the same thing she's doing down there?

And there's just no telling him how I feel. When I start to tell him I'm not on board with her coming he cuts me off and says "Do you want her to be miserable down there? She's my daughter and I'm always here for her and she's welcome whenever." And even if I say "I don't want her drinking or smoking up here he'll tell me he'll make sure that doesn't happen but the first night here she'll be doing both. If I say she needs to get a job right away he'll say "Oh definitely" but then after a week or so and I say "Is she looking for a job?" he'll say "She just got here. Let her chill out for a month before she does anything". If I say "I want to set a limit for how long she'll be here" and he'll say "Well yeah, I'm thinking a year until she can find a place of her own" I guarantee you she'll be here 5 years. He'll just say whatever to get me on board and won't follow through with any of it. He doesn't enforce anything because he wants her to be happy.

This is probably the 4th time he's told me that she needs to move here. The first one being 5 years ago when she wanted to, and it seemed it was going to happen, but then her mom intervened. There are two other times I can think of in the past few years where he's told me the same thing when she complains to him about something going on down there, but nothing ever happened because I don't think he ever pursued it. I don't know why he thinks that's the only solution for her. What is she going to do up here that is SOOOO different from down there? She has no friends here. She'll be doing the same dead end barista job she does down there, just a new location. She's just not a happy go lucky person. She has so much angst and anxiety and coming here isn't going to change any of that. But nothing I say to him will change his mind about her moving up here.

[RubyRae]

Do you know why what you think and feel doesn't matter to your husband and he does what he wants and in the way he wants to?

Because you allow him to.

Are there any consequences if he goes against what you want?If not then he knows you'll get mad,***** and whine but you won't ever really do anything about it.He probably doesn't even listen to you or even care what you say anymore,he probably just tunes you out knowing that in the end things will be how he says they will be.

I don't mean to sound cruel,but it's just the truth and sometimes the truth hurts.You really need to stand up for yourself and stand your ground.What can you do to prevent this from happening if it's not what you want?Why should you pay for people to be in your home and walk all over you?You do have choices and options and it's up to you what you do,you are not helpless in this situation.

If you are capable of working and paying everything like you do you are very capable of making much needed changes.You just need to realize that and believe in yourself.

Or you can sit back,allow all this to happen and be miserable.It's up to you.

I'm speaking here from my own personal experience,not just trying to tell you what to do.

[Mapper]

Originally Posted by RubyRae

Do you know why what you think and feel doesn't matter to your husband and he does what he wants and in the way he wants to?

Because you allow him to.

Are there any consequences if he goes against what you want?If not then he knows you'll get mad,***** and whine but you won't ever really do anything about it.He probably doesn't even listen to you or even care what you say anymore,he probably just tunes you out knowing that in the end things will be how he says they will be.

I don't mean to sound cruel,but it's just the truth and sometimes the truth hurts.You really need to stand up for yourself and stand your ground.What can you do to prevent this from happening if it's not what you want?Why should you pay for people to be in your home and walk all over you?You do have choices and options and it's up to you what you do,you are not helpless in this situation.

If you are capable of working and paying everything like you do you are very capable of making much needed changes.You just need to realize that and believe in yourself.

Or you can sit back,allow all this to happen and be miserable.It's up to you.

I realize I'm a doormat. I always have been. Don't want to rock the boat and have people mad at me because then I can't function. Our house is decorated like a teenagers bedroom because H thinks his stuff actually has substance and means something (like the Metallica poster in a frame in our living room and 5 motorcycle posters in frames in our living room and the drawing in a frame that his daughter did when she was 5 years old!). But my poster of mountains and a lake in Canada didn't mean anything so he took that down and put the Metallica poster in it instead. And my tin art that I bought was "just there" not doing anything. Yet then he tells me he wants me to put up stuff I want because he feels like everything is his. Well I try that and you say it's stupid.

So I tell him I don't want his daughter to live here and he will lord that over me forever. If she starts doing heavier drugs or has a nervous breakdown it will be my fault because I wouldn't let her come up here. If she gets pregnant it will be my fault. If she doesn't go back to school it will be my fault.

[RubyRae]

Do you like being a doormat?

There are things you can do to change that if you choose to.

[Mapper]

Originally Posted by RubyRae

Do you like being a doormat?

There are things you can do to change that if you choose to.

No but I'm too damn afraid to speak my mind! Too afraid of being hated. And what if something happens to SD that he thinks would have had a different outcome if she was living with us? Do I feel horrible about that for the rest of my life?

[RubyRae]

Originally Posted by Mapper

No but I'm too damn afraid to speak my mind! Too afraid of being hated. And what if something happens to SD that he thinks would have had a different outcome if she was living with us? Do I feel horrible about that for the rest of my life?

That was sad to read.I hope you're in therapy to get help with this,and if not,I hope you do very soon.

It doesn't sound to me like this is really about your SD and is more about your very dysfunctional marriage.This issue with your SD just sounds like it's one of many,many similar situations where you're left feeling like you have no voice,no choices ,are invalidated,ignored,used and abused.And as each incident piles up on top of another you feel so low and so insignificant and you're full of anger,hatred and bitterness and instead of focusing on yourself and what you can do to change yourself,change the way your life is you're obsessed with what your husband does wrong,hoping he will change instead of helping yourself.

I've been in your shoes.It's easy to get caught up in it,easy to obsess on what they are or aren't doing,criticising them,telling anyone who will listen all about how horrible they are,complaing endlessly about how they have wronged you,holding onto grudges,keeping track of every time they hurt you,constantly being upset,constantly looking for what they will do next,even as you did here,planning what will happen,even conversations you will have,knowing how it's going to go,even planning your seething anger over it.

It sucks to live that way,to feel that way.And the only way out of it,the only way for things to ever change is to just stop,change the focus to yourself,work on yourself and what you CAN change and go on whatever path it leads you and not worry about which way it will go.You can only control yourself,you can only change yourself.Only you can make a difference in your own life.

[Mapper]

Originally Posted by RubyRae

That was sad to read.I hope you're in therapy to get help with this,and if not,I hope you do very soon.

It doesn't sound to me like this is really about your SD and is more about your very dysfunctional marriage.This issue with your SD just sounds like it's one of many,many similar situations where you're left feeling like you have no voice,no choices ,are invalidated,ignored,used and abused.And as each incident piles up on top of another you feel so low and so insignificant and you're full of anger,hatred and bitterness and instead of focusing on yourself and what you can do to change yourself,change the way your life is you're obsessed with what your husband does wrong,hoping he will change instead of helping yourself.

I've been in your shoes.It's easy to get caught up in it,easy to obsess on what they are or aren't doing,criticising them,telling anyone who will listen all about how horrible they are,complaing endlessly about how they have wronged you,holding onto grudges,keeping track of every time they hurt you,constantly being upset,constantly looking for what they will do next,even as you did here,planning what will happen,even conversations you will have,knowing how it's going to go,even planning your seething anger over it.

It sucks to live that way,to feel that way.And the only way out of it,the only way for things to ever change is to just stop,change the focus to yourself,work on yourself and what you CAN change and go on whatever path it leads you and not worry about which way it will go.You can only control yourself,you can only change yourself.Only you can make a difference in your own life.

And just to be clear, I'd be fine if she wanted to move up here and get her own apartment. Perfectly fine with that. But she can't afford her own apartment. I'm damn ready to say I'll pay for it if she simply won't live here. I simply want to come home and not have to deal with her. Quite frankly I think I'd start working more or think of things to do after work so I didn't have to go home. And I shouldn't have to feel like that in my own house. I hate the fact that my space is invaded and that she will live on my couch in front of the tv and have her room look like a tornado went through it from the moment she gets here. I just don't want to live with her. That goes for EVERYONE else as well, not just her. I don't want my mom, my sister, H's mom, H's brother, H's sister, my best friend, his best friend, ANYONE staying with us. I can't even stand having overnight guests and now to have a possible extra adult living with us for who knows how long?? No thank you!!

[RubyRae]

Well,if you truly feel there's no getting out of it if your husband decides she will be living with you,maybe you could talk to her yourself about maybe staying at your house a specific amount of time,long enough to get a job and have checks rolling in and you will gladly help her get into her own place,will help with first months rent,deposit,whatever.You would do better by speaking directly to her rather than your husband.

Btw,is there a reason you quoted my post but didn't respond to anything I said in it?Just curious.

[Mapper]

Originally Posted by RubyRae

Well,if you truly feel there's no getting out of it if your husband decides she will be living with you,maybe you could talk to her yourself about maybe staying at your house a specific amount of time,long enough to get a job and have checks rolling in and you will gladly help her get into her own place,will help with first months rent,deposit,whatever.You would do better by speaking directly to her rather than your husband.

Btw,is there a reason you quoted my post but didn't respond to anything I said in it?Just curious.

Well she's working while living with her mother now and she isn't saving up to get her own place. She could never afford a place unless she rented with at least one other person. Well I don't think she spends many nights at her mom's house actually and is with And she, like her dad, would appease me by saying 'Oh sure I'll save up to move out" and she won't.

And no reason for quoting you. I just hit reply and the quotes came up and I didn't bother to erase them.

[RubyRae]

Originally Posted by Mapper

And no reason for quoting you. I just hit reply and the quotes came up and I didn't bother to erase them.

That's disappointing to hear.I wrote all that out in the hopes you might gain something from it just to have it ignored.

Good luck to you with all this.I'm out.

[Shazerac]

Originally Posted by Mapper

No but I'm too damn afraid to speak my mind! Too afraid of being hated. And what if something happens to SD that he thinks would have had a different outcome if she was living with us? Do I feel horrible about that for the rest of my life?

You will only feel horrible for the rest of your life if you chose do so. In my opinion this isn't really about your husband or SD. It's about why you chose to remain in a dysfunctional abusive relationship. It's about why you think you should be responsible for the actions of an adult step child. This is all about you. I hope you get some therapy or guidance of some sort. Because it's only going to worse if you continue on in this way.

[winter loneliness]

Many 20 somethings live with their parents. In today world it is not uncommon. I can see your husband's point of view.

[*Laurie*]

This is far from being about your SD. I'm pretty sure you know that.

[winter loneliness]

So, if this is one of the issues you two argue about and you feel you are not being heard, now is a good time to face this about your relationship.

Oh and I saw your other post about your step daughter. It is primarily up to your husband and his ex wife to deal with her behavior.